Top eight features leaked from the Windows Phone 8 SDK
Last month Microsoft had unveiled its Windows Phone 8 OS to the world. While it focused on showing some key platform features like the shared kernel with Windows 8, it did not elaborate on them in detail. Well if details is what you are looking for, then you are in luck as MobileTechWorld has got its hands on the leaked developer preview SDK which elaborates on all the key features of the OS.
Camera:
For the first time it has been revealed a new camera related feature in Windows Phone 8 called Lens Picker. The new interface provides a ‘lens picker’ button through which one can choose a multitude of lenses from the marketplace. While the details are sketchy on how this will work, on the basis of the screenshots we are assuming that the user will be able to integrate third party camera lenses inside the stock camera interface itself and add more functionality to it from a stock state. This of course will not only give lead OEMs like Nokia to differentiate their hardware but also will help the user as he/she will not need to learn a whole new camera interface like on Android and iOS.
Microsoft has further beefed up the stock capabilities of the camera app allowing for more enthusiast customization like ISO speed, exposure and multi-frame capture.
SD Card support:
Users will be able to save data using SD cards including music and camera images. There will be a dialogue box to change the setting to a SD card instead of the phone memory.
Lock Screen:
This report has also revealed more information regarding the lock-screen on Windows Phone 8 devices. Users will be able to choose an image, select their own color accents from predefined color list and will have the ability to add apps that will post quick notifications on the home screen.
App-to-App communication:
Another capability added to Windows Phone 8 is app-to-app communication. Through this apps will be able to talk to each other like on Android. A file type could be associated with multiple apps and one could even choose a default application for the file type or action. For instance, if we have a music file and we don’t to use the default music player, we could download one from the marketplace and set the downloaded app as the default.
NFC:
Another tidbit from the report details how NFC technology will work on Windows Phone 8 smartphones. Sharing will be enabled between any Windows Phone 8 developer preview devices or even between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 devices. Bluetooth will be simplified to a tag format or a static handover and developers will be given APIs so that they can make use of current NFC device-to-device scenarios. And finally a contactless payment method enabled by swiping the phone over NFC radios will be enabled.
SMS Backup:
A neat little feature that Microsoft has added to Windows Phone 8 is SMS backup to SkyDrive. Often one changes a device or even resets it, but that also results in the extermination of ones personal SMS’. Well, that’s about to stop with Windows Phone 8 as users will be able to back-up each and every message to SkyDrive.
Maps:
As we already know, Nokia Maps will be the engine for mapping on Windows Phone 8, but this report has revealed some interesting enhancements to the superlative mapping platform. There will be four cartographic modes and twin color modes for the application. Like Google Maps, users will be able to view landmarks and pedestrian features
API support:
And finally, for app developers Windows Phone 8 will support Direct3D, multi-core processors, higher resolution displays all thanks to the shared Windows NT kernel. But the key here is that Microsoft is calling the Windows Phone development environment Windows Phone Run Time rather than just Windows Run Time.
While a vast number of the WinPRT and WinRT development APIs remain the same, Microsoft has added a number of APIs in WinPRT that are tailored for a phone use case scenarios. Then the JavaScript access APIs are not supported in WinPRT.
Additionally, Microsoft has added a number of native APIs to the WinPRT development environment that include the Keyboard/text composition, Speech, Camera, Launchers/Choosers, Bluetooth and In-App purchasing.
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Do Still have access to Call Blocking API?
Auto reply calls with SMS?
